"I can't say I feel like I know what I'm doing when it comes to this," Donald McCain said after the Chester Cup on Wednesday. "I'm a jumping man, pure and simple. We've just had a bit of luck along the way."

It generally takes a good deal more than luck, of course, to win the Grand National one month and then one of the Flat's most historic and competitive handicaps the next. But though Overturn, McCain's winner on the Roodee, is an admirably tough front-runner, he certainly made the most of some good fortune yesterday, first as Eddie Ahern exploited his ideal draw in stall one, and then as the great majority of his fellow jockeys decided to watch from a respectful distance as he did so.

It was a textbook front-running performance by Overturn and Ahern, as the jockey fired his mount into a lead and then steadied the pace as much as possible until the final turn was within sight. Richard Hills, whose own talent for winning from the front is well-established, was the only rider to try to keep Overturn within striking distance, but though Tastahil, the top weight, seemed to be going slightly better than the winner with three furlongs to run, a 12lb concession to Overturn soon began to tell.

The pack then set off after Ahern, but whether you go around the Roodee twice or half a dozen times, it will always be immensely difficult to reel in a stayer who has had the softest of five-length leads to the three-pole. The difficult part of Ahern's job was already complete, and he held on comfortably to beat Tastahil by one and three-quarter lengths, with Mystery Star and Mount Athos third and fourth.

"To be honest, I thought they were going to take me on," Ahern said. "The advice I was getting in the weighing room was that I mightn't get the easy lead I was hoping to get, so I committed him early out of the stalls to maybe get three or four lengths on them, then after that the horse did it all himself.

"He gets into his own stride and rhythm, he gives himself breathers, you don't even have to ask him, he fills his lungs up and then off he goes again. Not many came to me, but he went on because he wanted to go. He just took off three out, he'd built up his air and then you could just feel him go."

Overturn and Ahern took last year's Northumberland Plate with similar tactics, and is now likely to be aimed at the same race again, offering Ahern another advertisement for his skills and another potential payday for the McCain stable during the normally quiet summer months.

"To do it that way is difficult," Ahern said. "Sometimes when horses go up in the weights you can hang on to them and give them more of a chance, but with that horse, there's only one way.

"I need everyone watching me doing things like that. A lot of jockeys are finding it hard to get rides, and things like this won't do any harm. After a long winter, it does your bank account good as well."

Wonder Of Wonders, whose pedigree is as impressive as that of any three-year-old in training, produced a very accomplished performance to take the Cheshire Oaks by just under three lengths and was immediately pointed towards the Oaks at Epsom by Michael Tabor, her co-owner.

"She showed a good turn of foot and you'd have to be happy with her," he said. "Why wouldn't you go to the Oaks with her, it obviously the next race for her unless Aidan [O'Brien] has got other ideas, and I doubt it.

"She'd won a run-of-the-mill Tipperary maiden, but she's beautifully bred and we were reasonably happy coming into this race. Chester's a good learning curve for Epsom."

Wonder Of Wonders, whose dam All Too Beautiful was a full-sister to Galileo and so a half-sister to Sea The Stars, was briefly quoted at 12-1 for the Oaks by one bookmaker after Wednesday's race, but is now top-priced at 10-1 for the Epsom Classic.